It can get really hard to reduce or hide your footprints on the internet. If you are concerned about your privacy and being chased on the internet. Then this article provides with the tricks and technique. Let’s Find out How to Optimize Mozilla Firefox for maximum privacy.

Firefox can be trusted when it comes to security and privacy. Firefox has many features that help in minimising the footprint over the web. But these features won’t just all turn on by themselves. Firefox lets you tailor your privacy and security so it doesn’t turn everything on by default. Firefox, like any other browser, would send your search query to the search query.That is the instance when you can leave a footprint on the internet. Also, to give you better results and related advertisements, Google and other companies like Firefox keep a track of your browsing habits. Which provides you with tailor-made advertisements and other recommendations. Sometimes services track your browsing habits to give faster loading and precise auto-suggestions. Whatever the reason be, it is true that nowadays many websites and services are tracking data.

How to Optimize Mozilla Firefox for Maximum Security and Privacy?

Hide suggested websites and Advertisements.

Stop Firefox from sending your browser history to google and other services. By doing this, you are minimising your tracks.

Click the settings icon(gear icon) at the top right corner of the screen.

Find and uncheck the option which says “Include suggested sites”.

STOP tracking

Firefox has a feature through which it can request websites to not track you. Usually, it is turned off by default so you will have to turn it on on your own.

Go to the privacy menu and there you can find privacy icon.

tick the “Tell websites I don’t want to be tracked” checkbox.

Modify search options

Yahoo is the default search engine in Firefox. You can change it though. Firefox sends your keystrokes typed to the search engine. This is how your search engine shows you suggestions while you type.

To be safe on your side, if you don’t want this. Do the following steps to turn it off.

Go to the Firefox options page.

find the search category.

uncheck the “Provide search suggestions” checkbox.

However, if you try and type in the address bar, you won’t get any search suggestions. Search suggestions for address bar is usually turned off

Fine tune some privacy settings

There exist privacy settings in the Firefox browser, you can edit these and adjust according to you.

Tracking option:

Firefox has a tracking protection set on by default. It prevents web trackers from tracking your information. However, you can use a private browsing. You can fine-tune the Blocklist for more aggressive protection against trackers.

History:

By default, Firefox remembers your browsing history and allows websites to save cookies. There is an option to set Firefox on “never remember history“. This option keeps your Firefox on private browsing mode permanently. To fine-tune how does your history settings should work, Firefox gives you an option to control it. You can use custom settings for history and configure how do you want it to work. One could customize it and tell Mozilla Firefox to forget History when you close it. Also, you could tell Firefox to not accept cookies from 3rd party apps, this may include your advertisements and suggestions.

Location bar:

Firefox, by default, will give you tailor-made websites suggestions based on your browsing History, bookmarks, and open tabs. When you type in your address bar, Mozilla Firefox will try to complete/suggest a name. You should disable this so that you can save yourself from prying eyes. This could prevent sensitive information being suggested when typing in a web address.

Disable auto sending of the crash reports and performance data.

Firefox has an option to monitor your browser’s and system’s performance and collects performance related data to optimize Mozilla Firefox. This could mean that your data is being transferred over to a remote server. If you are very skeptical about it and do not want this to happen. You can always change it in the settings. Open Advanced settings and search for “general” options tab in it. Uncheck the checkbox named as “submit performance data“.

Security and protection

Use the security pane to find various security options.

Block potential threat and deceptive content:

Mozilla Firefox maintains a database of web pages which are dangerous and can harm the system in some form. It updates its information with services like google time to time. When you type in an address, it checks the address and matches it with the information. If it finds the name in the list, then it blocks the website and prevents you from opening it.

Prevents malicious content from being downloaded.

Firefox prevents you from downloading malicious or dangerous content. If You are downloading any application, Firefox will cancel the download if its name exists in the list of bad websites.

Warning about potentially risky and unwanted software.

Turning this option on would cause Firefox to pop a warning message every time you try to download a software which is in the list of potentially unwanted programs.

If you leave these options on, it will benefit you as it could protect you from phishing, scam, and malicious web pages.

Make a data choice:

disabling/enabling Firefox health report.

Like a doctor, Mozilla Firefox would check your browser’s health. It would monitor for how long has it been on. Ho long it takes to startup or how many times does it crash. Firefox shares this information with Mozilla can come up with better updates in the future.

To reach the menu. menu > Help > Firefox Health Report.

Sharing of additional information:

You will find it turned off, by default. But if it is turned on, Firefox will send the information like what features do you use? How have you got your browser customized and includes the performance report.